A Big Week

So the WPL sp pretty much finished last week where it started with a $1.46 divi pocketed along the way. You’d have to take that - effectively 5% up against a market that was 2 or 3 % down.

WPL continues to be a great hedge against just about everything that is currently bothering the market......that’s why, despite the current price being around my planned exit point, I’ll continue to hold for a while yet.

Putting the Russia-Ukraine issue to one side there’s easily enough positives lined up to carry this stock into the mid $30’s. I’ve banged on about the obvious ones already.....here’s a couple of additional points:

(1) Fund managers are always looking for a point of difference....for a theme....to beat the indexes. Oil and Gas has become such a point of difference and the fund managers who are continuing to resist on ESG grounds must be getting very twitchy about what their 1st quarter returns are going to look like.....particularly against funds that have taken a position in oil and gas....they might succumb in coming weeks and create even more buy side pressure.

(2) Another issue is the quietening down of this notion that BHP shareholders will dump their WPL shares immediately upon receipt and cause a dip in the WPL sp. That can’t be as likely now with WPL shares being the hottest ticket in town. Over on the BHP thread the fact that BHP shareholders would be issued with WPL shares barely rated a mention when the merger was first announced and through last year. In recent times however there’s this sort of stuff all over the thread .....

‘how many WPL shares do I get?’

‘can I still qualify for WPL shares if I buy BHP now?’

‘when do we get our WPL shares?’

Institutions are the big holders sure, but this is certainly an indication of the shift in sentiment.....and as per my first point....insto’s with BHP shares might be a little less inclined to immediately dump their WPL allocation than they might have been if the allocations were made 3 or 6 months ago.

With the Russia-Ukraine conflict you can’t count on anything of course but WPL looks reasonably well placed for the coming week......and with the $1.46 dividend dropping into our bank accounts in a few weeks time I’m going to bend the rules and adjust our long awaited ‘WPL@$30’ to an effective $28.54........which we might even see in the next few days.